Understanding canine atopic dermatitis

Veterinary nurses are often asked about skin conditions and it is important to understand that canine atopic dermatitis can resemble many other pruritic skin diseases and to be aware of the many skin issues that can occur when carrying out consultations, conducting telephone triages and booking consultations, as first opinion practices are inundated with itchy dog phone calls. Hill et al (2006) state that pruritic skin disease accounts for just under half of dermatological problems in first opinion practice. Canine atopic dermatitis can very easily be misdiagnosed for other skin issues or diseases which resemble canine atopic dermatitis.

Canine atopic dermatitis is a common and complex allergic skin disease that affects canines all over the world. It is defined by the American College of Veterinary Dermatology as ‘a genetically predisposed inflammatory and pruritic allergic skin disease with characteristic clinical features associated with IgE antibodies most commonly directed against environmental allergens’ (Olivry et al, 2001; Bizikova et al, 2015a; Santoro et al, 2015). This is the ‘inside-outside’ theory. The ‘inside-outside’ theory proposes that a loss of skin barrier function allows allergens and microbes to easily penetrate through the epidermis, which increases allergen exposure to epidermal immune cells (Santoro et al, 2015).